Want to be in a Live TV Audience? Wear Long Dark Clothes and No Makeup

Mehri, her husband and her husband’s brother traveled from Nowshahr on the coast of the Caspian Sea to Tehran, hoping to be among the 300 people lucky enough to be in the studio audience for the popular TV show Get Together (Dor-e Hami) hosted by Mehran Modiri. Excited to have a chance to see one of their favorite shows in the making, they put their names down on a waiting list. At last they were called. 

“We were told to wear a long manteaux and come without make-up,” Mehri said. “Men were told not wear short-sleeved shirts. We followed the rules, but as we were going into the studio, they demanded more.”

Mehri had applied a pale nail polish to her fingernails. One of the people dealing with the audience asked her to remove it. “It had no color and was just a polish,” she said. “I did not think it needed removing, but they had a problem with it so I took it off before going into the studio.”

Mehri was not wearing makeup. “Women with makeup had to wipe it off before going in,” she said. “Others were asked to adjust their scarves to completely cover their hair.”

According to Mehri, the front row seats were given to women who had covered up in full. “They gave you a card with your seat assignment based on your place in the line, and of course on how you were dressed. The front rows, which were more in the limelight, were assigned to those wearing longer manteaux, had no make-up on, and whose hijab was good and tight. The men with them had to be wearing long-sleeved shirts.”

Although she seemed frustrated by the events of the evening — “they pestered us too much about makeup, manteaux, shawls and headscarves” — Mehri said she did not bear a grudge against studio employees who dealt with seating. “We were really tired waiting to be let in. But I know it’s not their fault. It was clear that the IRIB [Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting] was pushing them to do it.”

One Episode, Two Recordings

The first episode of Getting Together was actually recorded twice. According to the website Salam Cinema, the reason for this was that at the first recording, some members of the audience were improperly dressed. The site published a direct quotation from the show’s Instagram page: “Producers of Get Together incur substantial costs and efforts to record each episode, as do the players and others involved. So we never repeat it intentionally...The day that we were due to record the second episode we were told that the first episode could not be aired because some members of the audience were improperly dressed. As a result we had to record the first episode again.”

Get Together’s Instagram feed asked people hoping to join the audience to abide by four conditions. In addition to meeting the minimum age requirement and bringing an ID, men were asked to wear long-sleeved shirts without logos on them. “Women must wear the full Islamic hijab and long manteaux and must not wear makeup or nail polish.”

The post was later removed from Instagram, but Get Together fans and those with an interest in following the story keep sending screenshots of the post to one another.  

Get Together is by no means the only TV program with strict conditions for its live audience. Not long ago, news agency the Young Journalists Club published a photograph of a directive from the makers of the TV show Khandevaneh. It outlined what it expected from its female audience. According to the news agency, the terms of the directive came from the “Auditing Department” of the IRIB, and specified that women should not wear tight jeans or tights. Women must bring a long manteau, a headband and a pair of separate sleeves to cover their arms if the shirt they are wearing cannot do an effective job. They must not arrive at the television studio wearing makeup or nail polish. High hills are forbidden, and headscarves must not be shiny or feature anything sparkly that might attract attention. Women must also bring linen gloves and cannot wear watches, jewelry or rings.

Women at the Back, Men up Front

Get Together and Khandevaneh are both very popular TV shows in Iran. Of the two, Khandevaneh appears to have the more strict rules. “For Get Together, our family were seated next to each other,” said Sara, who has been a member of the audience for both shows. “But for Khandevaneh, they seated the women in the back and filled the front rows with men.”

“The IRIB is sensitive about the specific rules and conditions,” a  Khandevaneh crew member told IranWire. “The studios are built differently and the live audience for Khandevaneh is more visible. But there are other conditions which have nothing to do with hijab. For example, women are told to wear color manteaux and shawls, not black or white.”

He said that sensitivities were particularly heightened when shows are broadcast live. “For example, on many occasions, like the new year when a guest is invited on the show, there is usually a problem with the way he or she is dressed,” said the Khandevaneh employee. He said if the guest is a woman, there are even more of a chance that she will be asked to make alterations. “I’m not saying that she would be dressed weird. No, she is dressed normally — but it might not mesh with IRIB standards. It happens a lot that in the dressing room guests are given them a head covering to wear, or that they are asked to use safety pins to close the front of their manteau.”

According to the employee, sometimes guests are prevented from even entering the building to go to the broadcasting studios.“A few years ago, security blocked an actress who had been invited to be a guest on a live show from entering.”

Samir works for the Central Bank and is a writer for a radio channel. Sometimes she submits her work in person, taking it to Iranian Radio and TV’s main building. But she would rather not because of all the rules and regulations about dress. “The restrictions there overshadow the restrictions anywhere else,” she told me. “I wear the same manteau that I wear at the bank. I pass by the Morality Patrol, and they don’t say anything to me — but then IRIB’s security won’t tolerate it. Every time I go, I have to wait at the doorway until my editor or a colleague comes and picks the material up.” 

Samir has a daughter aged five, and she is not even exempt from the strict rules. Samir told me her daughter that when got a pass to be in the audience of one of her favorite children’s shows, one of the conditions was that she wear a headscarf — “even though many of the girls were nowhere near puberty,” Samir said. She said the stadium where the show was being aired had places reserved for girls and boys to ensure they would be separated   “Even children are not exempt from the segregation imposed by the IRIB,” she said.